My second week's assignment for Get Your Paint On was completed on Sunday, a stylized painting of my Sunshine Medallions Quilt Pattern.
Like the first painting I did from last week, I painted this using a combination of gouache and acrylic on an artist's panel (I learned these need a lot of paint, they really soak it up). I changed the patterning a little bit from the original quilt design, to experiment with a new color placement. I worked on what Lisa talked about in class, adding and adding layer upon layer of paint. I love that idea and I must say, she is right, good things happen in those layers and it creates a lot of visual depth. This one almost felt like an optical illusion when I was done.
It was never my intention to paint quilts, but once I got started, I seemed to be excited by the idea, I thought why not? The quilts I make, as I'm sure are the ones you make, are so very special to me. I do a lot of contemplating over fabric choices, colors, how they go together, why they work together, or what is missing. Maybe that is why this idea feels so natural for me. I won't say easy, I worked longer than I ever expected I would on both week's paintings, but I am enjoying the whole process of learning a new medium.
Last week my friend Christiane and I went to see the Gauguin & Polynesia exhibit at the Seattle Art Museum. We were both surprised by the colors of the Polynesian series he did, the colors, although vivid, were not as bright as I envisioned they'd be. Interestingly though, once he moved back home to Brittany, he continued to paint the Polynesian scenery and people as he remembered them. The colors in his memory must have been more vivid. Those pieces had a vibrancy to them I didn't see in the earlier ones, as if the paintings were his way of going back in his mind to a place he wanted to be.
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Lastly, tomorrow is a new month, and that means new inspiration wallpaper (I've been faithful to my plan of getting a new one up on the first of the month so far, yay! see the other months here), and a question for your crocheters, so stop back by then.


